Elections and Democratization: a New Assessment

Elections and Democratization: A New Assessment By Adil Omar Fala SUNY/Albany 1 The debate on the relation between election and democratization has attracted many scholars recently. Elections have been a very popular prerequisite of democracy in both scholarship and policy. Based on the assumption that democracy is “the government by the people for the people”, many scholars and policy makers linked democracy to holding free and fair elections. However, many critics of this argument were raised, stating that this is a minimalist definition of democracy and what it is really about. The key questions that this paper will address are: What are the different definitions of democracy in the scholarly literature? What position did these scholars give to elections in a democracy? What are the indicators of a fair and free election? Does fair and free election consolidate the democratic process? Under which conditions elections lead to democratization? The Concept of Democracy: The concept of democracy has evolved along the years to meet new challenges and opportunities that democracies face. It is obvious from the literature that there is no consensus on the meaning of the concept of democracy. David Collier and Steven Levitskey reviewed 550 subtype of democracy. Collier and Levitskey studied how scholars labeled democratizing regimes in more than 150 studiesi. They noted in their study how variant is the concept of democracy and how it was used to describe different types of regimes in the scholarly work. This shows that The concept of democracy incorporated some social and economic elements, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. In this literature, social inequality was seen as a barrier to full democracy. However, this tendency is changing in recent decades as scholars and policymakers refer to democracy as a purely political phenomenon. This has facilitated the study of democracy and its relation with some socio-economic phenomenonii. 2 The concept of democracy has been used to refer to a political phenomenon, which created a lot diversion among scholars. Joseph Schumpeter, defined democracy as “a system for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of competitive struggle for the people’s vote”iii. Joseph Schumpeter has described the classical doctrine of democracy as “holding that the democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions which realizes the common good by making the people themselves decide on issues through the election of individuals who are to assemble in order to carry out its will”. Against this view, Schumpeter has argued that there are some fundamental disagreements between people. There was nothing as defined to be a common good that all people could agree uponiv. He offered another theory, which states that “the purpose of democratic method was not to select representatives who would carry out the will of the people, but to choose individuals who would govern on their behalf” v. Another view that should be considered while discussing the concept of democracy is that of Robert Dahl. Dahl presented a more narrowed definition of the concept of democracy compared to Schumpeter. He states that democratic theory is concerned with “processes by which ordinary citizens exert a relatively high degree of control over leaders”. In his definition, Dahl focused on processes as the building block of democracy. These processes include, among others, elections as a central component of citizens’ power. Dahl accepts that not every group has equal control over political outcomes in a pluralist democracy. He argued that “so long as its social prerequisite remained intact, the system provided a relatively efficient means for reinforcing agreement, encouraging modernization, and maintaining social peace.” This is one of the critiques that one may address to Dahl’s democracy, which the lack of “equal opportunity” to influence the system. Democracy is built on the ideal of 3 “government of the people by the people”. However, if only the elite can influence the political outcomes, this puts democracy into question and limits its promises. In his book polyarchy, Robert Dahl argues that polyarchy has two dimensions: opposition (organized contestation through regular, fair and free elections) and participation (the right of everyone to participate in the system by running for office and voting)vi. Dahl has offered the most generally accepted listing of what he terms the "procedural minimal" conditions that must be present for modem political democracy (or as he puts it, "polyarchy") to exist: 1) Control over government decisions about policy is constitutionally vested in elected officials. 2) Elected officials are chosen in frequent and fairly conducted elections in which coercion is comparatively uncommon. 3) Practically all adults have the right to vote in the election of officials. 4) Practically all adults have the right to run for elective offices in the government . 5) Citizens have a right to express themselves without the danger of severe punishment on political matters broadly defined . 6) Citizens have a right to seek out alternative sources of information. Moreover, alternative sources of information exist and are protected by law. 7) . Citizens also have the right to form relatively independent associations or organizations, including independent political parties and interest groupsvii. Building on Dahl’s theory of democracy, Phillippe Schimitter and Terry Karl, presented a more inclusive view of democracy. In their essay entitled “what democracy is and is not?”, Schimitter and Karl argues that democracy is not made from a single set of unique institutions, but there are rather multiple forms of democracy. They built on Dahl’s seven conditions and added two more conditions to his list. The first condition is the ability of the elected officials to exercise their 4 powers without fairing to be overridden. Democracy can be in danger if military officials or civil managers control the decision making in elected bodies. The second condition is “the polity must be self-governing; it must be able to act independently of constraints imposed by some other overarching political system.”viii This definition has brought an interesting component, which the independence of elected bodies. This independence has not always existed in the democratic world because elected officials are influenced by external factors. For instance, lobbyists have a tremendous influence on members of the US Congress, which has been criticized by many scholars. This influence does not sometimes reflect the will of the constituents, but it is still adopted by members. Therefore, questions are raised about how representative is this body of the peoples’ will? A more cynical view of the above definitions was presented by Larry Diamond, in his book “developing democracy: toward consolidation”. Diamond argues that both Schumpeter and Dahl’s definition of democracy are minimalistic. Diamond focuses on civil liberty as another determinant of democracy. For him, the two dimensions of polyarchy can not be achieved unless the people have the freedom to speak and publish dissenting viewsix. Diamond called for a liberal democracy, instead of an electoral democracy, that offers, in addition to holding fair and free elections, elements of civil liberties and freedom. According to Diamond, liberal democracy has the following components: “control of the state and its key decisions lies with elected officials…executive power is constrained by other government institutions…cultural, ethnic, religious, and other minorities are not prohibited from expressing their interests..beyond parties and elections, citizens have other channels of expression, citizens are politically equal before the law…”x. 5 Diamond also raised in his book the question of democracy consolidation, while he viewed democracy as a developmental phenomenon that should change over time. Diamond defined consolidation as: “the process of achieving broad and deep legitimating, such that all significant political actors, both at the elite and mass levels, believe that the democratic regime is the most right and appropriate for their society, better than any other realistic alternative they can imagine”xi. Diamond further notes how the political actors should believe that democracy is the “only game in town”. Democracy should be the only way that can take a political actor to govern and advance his own interests. Diamond states that the political actor should believe that “…It [democracy] is the most right and appropriate for their society, better than any other realistic alternative they can imagine.” xii As we can see from the above reviewed definition, the concept of democracy has no one or definite meaning. Democracy is an elastic concept that adapts to the contexts in which it is being applied. The elasticity of democracy should not, however, omit us from adopting a more maximalist definition of the concept that can guide this research effort. Diamond seems to offer an interesting definition of the concept by his consideration of most of the aspects that make democracy. In diamond’s theory, elections are given an important position as one of the pre-requisites of democracy. However, Diamond’s definition does not stop at the stage of election, but continues to include the aspects of free and fair elections. The rest of this essay will tackle the different dimensions and indicators of fair and free elections and how they

Load more